(G, part 1)

GAGNE, VERNE - Gagne, one of pro wrestling's all-time biggest names, was an alternate at 191 pounds for freestyle wrestling in the 1948 Olympics. He was taken to London for the games, as the U.S. decided to enter its alternates in freestyle, into the Greco-roman competition, which wasn't practiced in the U.S. However, because they had no experience nor qualified in the style, it was ruled in London that they couldn't wrestle. Henry Wittenberg, who represented the U.S. at 191 pounds, won the gold medal. Legend had it that Wittenberg had a tougher match in the trials against Gagne than anyone he faced in the Olympics. Gagne was also a college football star at the University of Minnesota, and had NFL offers. He turned them down because pro wrestling had just hit on television. After beating Dick Hutton in overtime to win the 1949 NCAA championship, he went pro in wrestling, and was a superstar from day one, groomed by promoter Tony Stecher in Minneapolis coming off his college wrestling and football stardom at the University of Minnesota. Gagne was rated by Sports Illustrated in its century-in-review as one of the greatest athletes ever from Minnesota. After Leroy McGuirk was blinded and had to vacate the world junior heavyweight title, Gagne won the one-night tournament on November 13, 1950, in Tulsa, and held it for one year before losing to Danny McShain in Memphis. He was also the Midwest's leading contender for NWA champion Lou Thesz, and the two had numerous matches that were considered classics in their time. After a promotional dispute when Sam Muchnick booked Thesz to work for a rival promoter in Chicago, Fred Kohler, who had national TV on the Dumont Network, was furious. In 1953, he created the U.S. heavyweight championship, which became the major title on his TV because he stopped booking Thesz, putting it on Gagne, who held it for three years. Gagne, who was booked nationally off the television and was such a strong attraction that he commanded 10% of the gate, was among the earliest U.S. athletes, along with Joe DiMaggio and Thesz, to earn $100,000 in a given year. He gained control of the Minneapolis Boxing and Wrestling Club in 1960, and created the AWA, where he could avoid NWA politics and bill himself as world champion. The television storyline they gave was that Gagne had been passed over for NWA title shots for years, and in May of 1960, the announcement was made the AWA was giving NWA champ Pat O'Connor 90 days to sign for the match, or Gagne, who they claimed owned a version of the title (he beat Edouard Carpentier in Omaha, who never actually lost the title to Lou Thesz after winning it, although Thesz had beaten Carpentier in St. Louis to clear up the controversy), would be given the title. The match never took place. While the title bounced around, Gagne was the top babyface and either the champion, or top contender, for most of the next 21 years. He even put the title back on himself for a final run at the age of 55, when he beat Nick Bockwinkel. When he retired for the first time on May 10, 1981, at the sold out St. Paul Civic Center, beating Bockwinkel, he retired as champion, although he had many comeback matches, the first of which still holds the all-time Twin Cities attendance mark as it was a show that sold out the Civic Center and was the only show in area history ever closed-circuited (really the top draw was Bockwinkel vs. Hulk Hogan). His subsequent comeback matches, which continued through 1987, when he was 61, and suffered serious injuries taking a bump out of the ring, had diminishing returns.

GEESINK, ANTONIUS (Anton Geesink) Geesink of The Netherlands made a huge name in Japan, because it was the Japanese that introduced judo in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and expected Akio Kaminaga, their top heavyweight, to win the first ever gold medal in the open weight division. However, Geesink, was a legend in the sport having won his first world title in 1949 at the age of 15. Geesink beat Kaminaga in the gold medal match in 9:22, after winning his semifinal match over Theodore Boronovskis of Austria in 12 seconds. The Olympics that year were doing incredible TV ratings and virtually the entire country saw the final match. Geesink, who was a legit 6-6 and 267 pounds, was signed by Giant Baba, looking to bring into a wrestling a mainstream sports star with a recognizable name, in September of 1973, shortly after opening All Japan Pro Wrestling. Geesink, 39, debuted to huge fanfare on November 24, 1973, in Tokyo, beating with Baba to beat Bruno Sammartino & Cyclone Negro in two straight falls. He signed a three-year contract for six figures, huge money for pro wrestling at that time. Despite his size and name, he was a flop inside the ring. He was 310 pounds by this time, a monster by the standards of wrestlers in that era as he was noticeably bigger than Don Leo Jonathan and taller than Gorilla Monsoon, two of his most famous foes. He almost never did jobs, and his most famous matches was were when he toyed with Jonathan and Monsoon in what were called judo rules matches wearing gis (or as they were called at the time, judo jackets). A famous pro wrestling story was after Geesink toyed with Jonathan, who had a tough guy rep, in his specialty, they were put together in a pro wrestling tag match and it turned into a shoot without the gis, and this time, it was Jonathan who got the better of it. After his contract expired, he left pro wrestling, never to return. His name made international news in 1999, during an Olympic bribery scandal. Geesink was on Holland's National Olympic committee, and he was one of the men implicated in the scandal where bribes were paid in exchange for votes for awarding a site location.

GEORGE, ED DON - George placed 4th in the superheavyweight division in freestyle in 1928. He came right out of the Olympics and won the world heavyweight title from Gus Sonnenburg on December 10, 1930, in Los Angeles. That title change wasn't planned much ahead of time. Sonnenburg was a super drawing card, as a famous college football star at Dartmouth, but he was not a wrestler, nor a fighter.. A rival promoter had a middleweight wrestler attack and beat up Sonnenburg on a crowded street corner in Los Angeles. This was an incredible embarrassment for pro wrestling at the time when a small guy beat up the world heavyweight champion. Those in control once again realized they needed to put the world title on a real wrestler, so they put it on George. George lost the title on April 14, 1931, in Los Angeles to Strangler Lewis, when Lewis informed him in the ring there was a change of plans, doing the old "we can do this the hard way or the easy way" line. George did it the easy way. George won the world title a second time on March 9, 1933, in Boston, from Henri DeGlane, before losing to a non-real wrestler, but a super Irish draw in Danno O'Mahoney on July 30, 1935, in Boston. After retiring from the ring, George was a major promoter in Michigan and New York well into the 50s.

GHAFFARI, SIMIAK (Matt Ghaffari) - Ghaffari, a long-time rival of current Olympian Rulon Gardner, represented the U.S. in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling as a superheavyweight. He didn't place in 1992. The native of Iran, who moved to the U.S. at the age of 15, pretended to be Italian for some time in the U.S. after the Iranian hostage crisis, which took place when he was in high school, going by the name Matt Ghaffario. When the 1996 Olympics rolled around, he was obsessed with Alexandre Karelin, the Russian legend, who had beaten him 20 times in a row. Ghaffari kept a photo of Karelin in his locker, another framed in his house, and another in his wallet. In 1993, Ghafarri even broke Karelin's ribs in the world championships, but Karelin still beat him, and continued on to win the tournament. Three months before the 1996 Olympics, Karelin underwent shoulder surgery and was told he wouldn't be ready. Still, he had outscored foes 24-0 going into the gold medal match with Ghaffari. Karelin beat GhatTari, 1-0, to capture the gold, in his closest match in years. Ghaffari debuted in a Tokyo Dome match against Naoya Ogawa on August 8, 2002, on a show that was a disaster live with just 5,000 paying fans and 12,000 total. However, the main event drew a 21.2 rating for a horrible match that went 1:56 before Ghaffari got punched in the nose in what looked to be a double-cross finish of what was billed as a shoot match, but who really knows? Ghaffari and Ogawa later worked a pro wrestling program based off the high TV viewership of their original match for the Zero-One promotion, and later the Hustle promotion. Ghaffari, at nearly 400 pounds, some 115 pounds more than his Olympic wrestling weight, became a short-lived pro wrestling cult favorite, even holding the quickly forgotten NWA world superheavyweight title.